


lay me gently in the cold dark earth

by cesellia



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 02:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21486721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cesellia/pseuds/cesellia
Summary: ‘When will I see you again?’ I asked you. You didn’t respond, didn’t even acknowledge my presences. I asked you again. No answer.It was because you were dead. Even in my dreams, you were dead.
Relationships: Kitagawa Yusuke/Kurusu Akira, Kitagawa Yusuke/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	lay me gently in the cold dark earth

To Yusuke, 

“_Do you remember the night I showed up at your dorm at Kosei? You were asleep when you opened the door, but you hadn’t even closed your eyes in several nights—you had an essay due that morning and spent the whole night rushing to get it done._

_‘Are you all right?’ you asked me, before inquiring as to why Morgana wasn’t with me. ‘He always insists on being by your side, especially when it's past curfew.’ _

_I told you Futaba was taking care of him—snickering and taking videos as she forced him into cat-sized bikinis. Then I asked you if you wanted to come with me to the ocean. _

_‘Akira, but it’s nearly midnight, and we both have class tomorrow. Shouldn’t you be home resting?’ you asked, and I laughed, saying it didn’t matter, that by tomorrow nothing would. You didn’t understand what I meant, maybe you still don’t. _

_There was only one train that ran that late, and it was expensive. It wasn’t until our next mission in Mementos that I got back all that lost money. _

_The dark waves violently crashed against the shores and rocks, the wind blowing our hair in every direction—it took us a week of struggling to fix our hair before giving up and asking Ann to come with her heat irons. It was a vicious night there as we sat at the peer, our legs dangling off the edge, but it was also the most peace either of us had experienced for a long time. _

_We watched the lights of ships disappear over the horizon, listening to the sound of a party around a bonfire. _

_Your eyes were fixated on the stars above us, your lips parted in awe as you whispered the word beautiful to yourself. And I agreed—but it wasn’t the stars I was thinking of. _

_Our moment of peace ended as a violent wave crashed on to us, soaking through our double layers of coats. We sat there silent for a long time before our eyes met each other’s and we both burst out into laughter. That was the first time I ever heard you laugh full-heartedly. I wish I could have had the chance to hear it again. _

_We dashed back to the train station after that, teeth chattering and our faces frozen as we let out a sigh of relief as the gentle warmth of the train engulfed us. _

_We huddled close together on our trip back, not caring of the other passengers’ strange stares at us two boys—soaking wet and out of breath from the short marathon we had just run. _

_When we got back to Tokyo, it was nearly six in the morning—the sky was a gentle canvas of pink and purple. I walked you back to your dorm. _

_‘Thanks for tonight’ I told you, grabbing ahold of your coat’s collar as I pulled you into a kiss, tasting the salty sweetness against my tongue. Our lips lingered there for a long time, hours it felt like. I didn’t want to let you go. I still wished I hadn’t stepped back from you, giving you a cheeky smile at your surprised expression before making my trip back to LeBlanc. _

_That night, I dreamt of you, of us holding hands as we walked against a tropical beach, you telling me about all of your favourite artists. I listened—taking in every word as the developing smile against your lips sent me into a trance. _

_I still have that dream. Every night. But now it is plague—a nightmare that won’t go away no matter how hard I tried. I went countless nights without sleeping to avoid you. Sleeping pills that guaranteed the consumer that they would have restful sleep without dreams. What liars they were. _

_The night before you left me, you were laying with me in bed—Morgana suspicious of both of us and forcing himself in between us to keep us from committing any “unsavoury acts” in front of him. _

_‘What would happen,’ you began after he fell asleep, ‘If someone died within the Metaverse?’ _

_It was a question that took me by surprise. I never had never thought of it priorly. I was always on the brink of death in battles, but I had always pulled through, and I never occurred to me to we truly could die in there. _

_It wasn’t unlike you to ask absurd questions like that, so I assumed it was only from curiosity. I laughed, saying that maybe one day we would find out. And we did. Two times too many. _

_You never told me why you let it happen—or if it was even a conscious decision at all. One moment, we were in an exhausting battle in Mementos. Next moment, we were rushing you out of there to the hospital. _

_Morgana didn't understand why you were still injured after exiting that realm, but there was no time to care about those little details—we needed to keep you alive. _

_But when we got to the hospital, it was already too late. You had bled out to death quickly. _

_I spent the next several days locked up in Leblanc, not caring to show up to Shujin, not caring to eat. It took Futaba and Boss a long time to eventually get me to at least_ drink _something. _

_The nightmares were bad, Yusuke, I want you to know that. I woke up Morgana so many times during the night from me screaming and crying and other things I rarely ever did. _

_It was my fault, I know it was. Everyone says that I couldn’t have stopped it, that you were done for the moment the poisonous blade went into your bloodstream. But it should have been me. _

_It should have been me. _

_I didn’t want to write this to you, I would much rather forget that beautiful laugh of yours than to deal with the anguish of no longer having you by my side. But Makoto wanted me to write this—that if I wasn’t able to talk about it openly to anyone else, that it would help me relieve the pain if I wrote it down, for you. _

_I saw you again tonight. You were laying next to me in a field of lavender, us silent as we watched birds fly overhead. _

_‘When will I see you again?’ I asked you. You didn’t respond, didn’t even acknowledge my presences. I asked you again. No answer. _

_It was because you were dead, I quickly remembered. Even in my dreams, you were dead. _

_I can’t stand this anymore. I can’t stand another night begging you to return to me. And I can’t continue on as a phantom thief without you and everyone else by my side. I can’t continue on living like this. _

_I hate you, Yusuke. I have loved you for too long and too much and my heart can no longer handle this separation between us._”

I will see you soon,  
Akira Kurusu

**Author's Note:**

> mes [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cesellia) / mes [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/lyilenor)


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